ISLAMABAD, 29 March 2005 — Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz yesterday expressed his optimism that the situation in troubled Balochistan will improve soon.

Aziz’s statement came after talks between government’s two negotiators and Baloch tribe chief Nawab Akbar Bugti on Sunday. Pakistan Muslim League (PML) chief Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and its Secretary General Mushahid Hussain visited the tribal chief as government negotiators to resolve the standoff and agreed to form a committee.

Aziz told reporters that the three-member monitoring committee will oversee a peaceful settlement of the situation in Dera Bugti.

Aziz said the committee with one member from the government, one nominee of Bugti and a unanimously agreed member Mushahid Hussain, will also monitor the implementation of the agreement between the government and Bugti.

He said government wanted to resolve all the contentious issues through negotiation and reconciliation. He said the three-member committee would monitor the implementation on the recommendations of the Balochistan Committee to ensure completion of developmental projects in the province.

Bugti, the tribal chief at the center of an armed standoff, also said that some progress has been made in peace talks with government negotiators.

The comments came days after a military commander warned that a confrontation between security forces and thousands of supporters of the chieftain may flare up.

Fighting erupted in Dera Bugti after Bugti tribesmen on March 17 allegedly attacked a convoy of paramilitary troops in mountains near this desert town, about 550 km southwest of the capital Islamabad.

In clashes that followed, more than 60 people, including eight soldiers, were reportedly killed.

A cease-fire was brokered a day later and remains in place.

As thousands of armed men and soldiers faced each other, the government allowed lawmakers and journalists to travel to Dera Bugti last week to assess the situation in the town, and began efforts to end the conflict peacefully.

On Sunday, the two negotiators held talks with Bugti. “We have reached an understanding to some extent but several issues still have to be settled,” Bugti told reporters after meeting with government representatives.

Bugti gave no other details.

“We are ready for their attack. They will do whatever they want and we will do what we will want,” Bugti said, when asked about any breakdown in the negotiations and a future operation against the tribesmen.

Bugti met with the lawmakers in his compound, guarded by some 500 tribesmen with AK-47 assault rifles slinging from their shoulders.

Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, one of the negotiators, said he could not release details of the talks.

“We cannot make it open what has been settled. We are at a delicate turn. The negotiations are ongoing,” he said at the news briefing sitting alongside Bugti.

Later Sunday, Chaudhry Shujaat met Aziz in Islamabad and apprised him of his negotiations with Bugti.

Aziz also hoped that Bugti will actively participate in the peace process and take it forward.

Tension has gripped Dera Bugti and the nearby town of Sui, where Pakistan’s main gas fields are located, since January when suspected tribesmen attacked the gas facilities with rockets.

The tribesmen were angered by the rape of a female doctor in the area, allegedly by members of the military, and by what they say is the government’s deliberate failure to arrest the suspects.

They also oppose government plans to setup a new military garrison in the region and want the government to increase royalty for resources extracted in their territory.

Meanwhile, two bombs exploded on a railway line linking Pakistan with Iran, but no injuries were reported, an official said yesterday.

The blasts happened late Sunday, damaging a section of the track linking Quetta, capital of the southwestern province of Balochistan, with the Iranian border town of Zahedan, said Shoaib Ahmed, controller of traffic for state-run Pakistan Railways.

He said no one claimed responsibility for the blasts.